The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well and enjoying Christmas Eve, at least in my part of the world!
I want to say first and foremost, THANK YOU for taking time and visiting my blog.
I want to wish everyone a SAFE and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! May all your wishes come true and may the coming new year bring you the peace, love, and success your heart desires.
Take good care all.
Until next time…
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well.
I wanted to see if I could make some Christmas ornaments using cookie cutters and air dry clay. Guess what? It worked. This is going to be a great project for the weekend with my girls.
Things I used: mini rolling pin that’s used for clay activities, toothpick, cookie cutters, and air dry clay
I pressed little alphabet beads into the heart, spelling out LOVE, and two gold beads for Mr. Gingerbread
According to the container, it takes about 2 – 3 days for the clay to dry. Since I pressed little beads into the clay it did crack a bit during the drying process. I just used a toothpick and inserted a little bit more clay in the areas that was noticeable then let the clay dry once again. I used pink and white twine to string it up the heart.
I painted Mr. Gingerbread a lovely Acorn color (Martha Stewart acrylic paint) with a small paintbrush.
This project has endless possibilities!
Take good care all.
Until next time…
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well.
I’m officially obsessed with this paper bow template (http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-make-paper-bow.html) and that’s okay with me. I’m going to my niece and nephew’s birthday party and I wanted to personalize their gift bows. It takes a little time, but the end result is wonderful, at least in my opinion!
I used construction paper for the first bow and printed out the name in various fonts on Word.
For the second bow, I scanned the template and uploaded it on Word, then changed the color and inserted the name, here and there in various fonts as well.
I love these personalized bows and can’t wait to make and use them for my Christmas presents.
Take good care all.
Until next time…
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well.
The holidays are fast approaching and my mind is about to explode. Please SLOW DOWN!! Wishful thinking, I know. Anyway, the other day we went to my mom’s house and I decided to take a gingerbread kit, which I bought at Ikea (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90218783/), with us because we’ve never constructed a gingerbread house before and I thought my girls and I would have a lot of fun putting it together with Grandma Rose. That was an understatement because we had a BLAST!
Along with the kit I also bought a bunch of decorating goodies:
Marshmallow fluff
Mini marshmallows
Mike & Ike candy
Fruit Snack Gummies
Twizzlers
Mini M&M’s
Skittles
The laughter was non-stop between my youngest licking her fingers (germs galore, yikes!) and dealing with the stickiness of the marshmallow fluff. We did our very best to stack the house, decorate it, and keep it in tact, but…
…it didn’t work. By the end of the night, one side of the roof was falling off and the fluff was melting causing the candies to fall down with it. Oh well, we still had so much fun building it and then eating it.
Take good care all.
Until next time…
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well.
Here’s an idea to spruce up any plain boxes you may have around (in my case: a cardboard red box that stores my bracelets) or even gift boxes for upcoming Christmas presents. You can use washi tape. They come in many designs and can be easily removed so if you make a mistake or get tired of the design, just peel it off and reposition or pick another design.
I chose a script writing washi tape that I found at A.C. Moore on sale. These little tapes can be expensive so when they go on sale get as many as you can. If you’re a crafter, you won’t regret the purchase. I just covered the top of the box and lined up the tape so it would look like a continuous design.
I wanted to see the finished box with a gift bow so I took out my scrapbook paper, which I also got on sale at AC Moore (buy, buy, buy) and my bow template courtesy of http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-make-paper-bow.html.
I love my cardboard red box now more than ever and if I was gifting this box, I would add the paper bow.
I decorated my kids play doh accessories box with the Super Mario (brand DUCK TAPE) design (found it at AC Moore, not on sale 😦 ). I found the birthday duct tape and glitter tape at the dollar section in Target. Yup, $1 . Score! The other washi tapes that I have are silhouette birds on a wire and cloudy sky with red hearts. I have a strong feeling this tape collection is going to be growing. I’m gonna need a big storage box, STAT!
Take good care all.
Until next time…
Oh angry bird
look at you there
staring fiercely at me,
but you bring so much joy
to so many kids, including my own.
You’re even inspiring.
Beckoning me to take a photograph of you
with your beady little eyes,
furrowed eyebrows and pointy beak.
Who knew you were such a model?
You definitely have that je ne sais quoi.
– Angelica Mercado
____________________________________________________________________________
Hello everybody!
I hope you guys are well.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, less writing these past few months days. Just going through the motions and preparing for Christmas. The tree and decorations are up at the Mercado household, the online wish list has been emailed and the gift shopping is very SLOWLY getting checked off. As for my angry bird inspiration above, my kids are always taking their toys, whether they’re bath toys or not, to the bathroom and while taking a shower the other day, I spotted the angry bird on the dollhouse table. It beckoned to be photographed. So I did. And then gave it some words.
Take good care all.
Until next time…
themercadoproject 